Those who've had missing snakes ...

For those of you who've had missing snakes, or ball pythons in particular, and found them again, have you ever considered using Mouse Maker as a lure?

One of my new boys got out a few days ago. We've torn apart the area at least once a day looking for him. Last night I made the house really cold all evening and night and provided 3 warm spots: a heat pad tucked behind a chair against a wall, the heat around the snake containers, and a heat pad tucked behind one file cabinet and against another with a hide box on top containing a dead mouse. He didn't show up for his appointment, but I've left it set up and am leaving the cats and dogs blocked out of the room.

I don't want to spread flour all over the red carpet to look for tracks and I imagine it won't be so effective on carpet anyway. I am thinking about strewing plastic grocery bags all over the place so I can hear him if he moves. I don't know what else to do, except maybe using Mouse Maker as a lure.

If you have any other ideas or think this one is lousy or will work, please tell me. I'm worried about the little guy.

Sorry to hear about your escapee Marla. Those sound like some great ideas for getting him back though.....................except for the flour part :P LOL This is your second escapee? Im not sure I thought you posted some time ago about an escapee,if so is it the same snake?

Nah, every snake I've ever had has gotten away from me at some point. I just usually recover them before they even realize they're free. But it's the third time I've had an escapee since joining this site, which is the main reason I switched enclosure types. Now I've realized there's a better way to go about it and will be making holes for use with a bungee cord to prevent future escapes. The multi-drawer setup was great for convenience, but not so good for escapes. The taller locking bins were great for escapes, but not good for stacking or keeping heat/humidity steady. The single drawer at a time (stacked) is better for both, but still leaves the possibility of escape, just this time as a multi-step process for the snake. A bungee cord ought to fix that, though.

How hard have you looked?

I once tore apart my room 5 times looking for one of em sure I'd covered every area. Well, it's happened two times. And I end up finding them in a stupid place I never thought it'd be.

Do you mean have I emptied or lifted every single thing in the room, the two adjoining rooms, and the crawl space? No, I haven't. But I have emptied/lifted/looked in everything within 10 feet and a lot of what's further than that. By myself I don't have the power to do a thorough search of the entire area. Friday I searched until I literally collapsed on the floor and had to have my daughter bring me a granola bar to bring up my blood sugar. Sunday my older daughter joined me in the search and she was able to check a few places I couldn't because of size, but he still wasn't there. There are a lot of hiding spaces he could get to that I couldn't look in, anyway, like the drop ceiling and the ventilation.

None of which relates to my question, has anyone used MouseMaker or considered using it for bait for a missing snake?

Mouse Maker is something used to scent other prey items to make them smell like mice, yes? It makes sense that leaving such a strong odor would attract the snake...but if the snake went to the smell and didn't find anything, it may just crawl off again, back to wherever its been hiding.

Unless I'm totally mistaken on how you plan to use it? :)

I wanted to use it to leave a trail to the dead mousie in the hide box on top of the heat pad, hoping that I would find a full-bellied snake there instead of a mousie later.

Oohhhhh....yeah...that does sound like a pretty good idea. I don't know if snakes track like bloodhounds or not...but it sounds like something worth trying.

how else would snakes track? by sight? ;)

Well, turns out if I want Mouse Maker I have to drive over an hour to get to it. I just finished spending over an hour with my entire household going through the entire downstairs. We pulled the bottles out of the bar, the books out of the bookshelves, the socks out of the basket in the laundry room, etc. We looked under and behind the washer, dryer, and water heater, and behind the furnace. We looked in the rafters as far as we could with a stepstool or climbing on appliances. We pulled out the stereo, tv, vcr, dvd, guitar case, sofa, loveseat, etc., and patted the bottoms of the sofa, loveseat, and chaise. I disassembled my desk, dumped out the hampers and went through the clothes, opened the backgammon case, looked through the trash cans. And yes, we did go through the crawl space and checked every box in it. Basically, if it could be gone through or reached by humans of our heights and widths, we covered it. If the snake is still in here, he is in a wall, the rafters behind the furnace, or the insulation in the crawl space.

I give up. I am throwing in the towel. I will keep a couple of warm spots and check them multiple times a day and I will leave the mouse in the warm hide for another night and keep the dogs and cats out of the room, but he's going to have to come back voluntarily at this point. I guess I need to go ahead and work out a name for the clutchmate he left behind.

:(

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Wizill

how else would snakes track? by sight? ;)

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Touche, Will... :)

I'm sorry, Marla. That really sucks. If I were in your situation, I'd put the warm hides out every night for awhile, and a mouse about once a week...just in case. I'll bet he surprises you one of these days! Hopefully in the not-too-distant future. ::HUGS::

Yeah, it really does suck, more because I care about the snake than because of his potential value as a breeder, but I do have to consider that too. I still hope he'll show up, but there's really nothing more I can do to search for him than what I have done. I will be leaving the warm hide out, and will probably put a mouse out on occasion as you suggested. Heck, maybe he'll be in the hide tomorrow morning. Thanks for the sympathy.

Last snake I was allowed to own as a kid was an Eastern Hognosed I had caught in Berkley Springs WV - kept him for almost a year and he grew and grew. One night he managed to knock the ~20lb stack of books off the top of his tank and disappeared. He turned up in the most unlikely place - and to this day I have no idea HOW he got there. He found my mom and that was the end of keeping snakes.

She's a tad paranoid and would always clean out the dryer vent (aluminum tube that runs the air outside) and when she popped it off he fell out and promptly puffed up his faux hood and hissed like hell. That rant went on for DAYS and I couldn't even keep a ringneck after that heh.

LOL! That's a great story, Smulkin!

OMG! Poor little guy must've been scared as much as your mom was. We used to have a nest of grackles in our dryer vent every spring. They'd make lots of noise every time the dryer ran and blew warm air over them. :)

My dad was always overwilling to let me keep herps and even bring me back stuff every now and then - but only because he refused to have cats/dogs or any free-range housemammals. Now that he's retired on his massive acreage he has swarms of dogs herds of felines and be damned if the old man didn't sart raising BEES. Course he is still the archtype of the "great white hunter" but man that's a 180. I owe all my interst and comfort with snakes to the old man though.

/tears up

:P

That's great that your dad stimulated you into interest in non-mammals. My roommate's late father was allergic to vet bills, but he had the local squirrels coming in his bedroom to eat crackers from his hand. Sounds like your dad is making up for what he missed out on before. :)

I was gonna suggest look on all your appliances for any small hole because he may have crawled in there
Did you look behind like bookcases shoved up against the wall?? even if it looks like nothing could get in there? The reason I am asking is Ozzy will crawl back behind my bookcase which is sooo tight against the wall I dont know how he fits then he will crawl way up the top if I hadnt seen him go back there I would never have look there
The insulation in your crawl space may very well be where he is it's dark and warm
Good Luck I will say a little prayer for the youngin's safe return

Yes, there is one free-standing bookcase and I looked behind it from top to bottom. The rest of the bookcases in the room are built-ins and there is no looking behind them without a lot of trouble with the landlord. We also checked behind the toilet & between the tank and wall, inside the bag of dog food under the bathroom sink, in between the desk drawers and desk shell, inside the drink cooler and blender, literally everywhere on that floor that it was possible for us to look without disassembling anything that didn't belong to us (the house). I'd pull down the insulation in the crawl space but I have a big problem with fiberglass plus it's cold in there and I think he'd be more likely to hide someplace warm.

Thanks for the good thoughts, though. I hope he'll turn up still, but with the coordinated posse effort failing, I'm afraid that may just be the last I see of him.

whats a grackle?

A group of greese?

A grackle is a medium-sized, shiny black bird. It looks like a small crow.

And Judy wins! They're pretty homely looking birds, but it was kind of cool to listen to the babies making such a grackle racket every time we ran the dryer. :)

We had "boat tailed" grackles in Tucson and San Antonio. The males have very long tails that make a deep v-shape...like a boat keel. They're actually kinda pretty with their proud tails. But your average grackle is fairly homely.

i was hoping my lost snake would have tried to get at the rats that were 15 feet from where i found him,but nope.He once tried to get some mice though by crawling up on a coffee table on the other side of the room from where he lived,to sit and figure out how to get through the cage.Guess it just depends if hes very hungry or not.Mine had eaten a few days before he got loose and didnt find a warm spot to digest.

Mine that got loose should have been hungry, but he hasn't shown up yet. It's not impossible for him to show up at this point, but I'm not holding my breath either. I'm sorry yours got out too.

Once, when my bp got out I didn't even know she was missing until one time we were watching tv and saw a little snake head poke out of the VCR! I think she went their because of the heat. I now have locks on the cage lid so it won't happen again.

Yipes! Good thing you didn't try to put a tape in!

We were!! but i should have said she was on the VCR. (I got mixed up :) )

Ahhhh.....LOL...I was picturing her little head poking out of the tape-door. But then again, since they swing inward, if she did get in there, she wouldn't be able to get back out on her own.

LOL, Judy, I had the same picture! Poor little snake trying to get back out of the vcr!

All this discussion is starting to make me wonder how difficult it would be to train a dog like an Australian Shepherd to scent track a missing snake? Aussies are extremely smart dogs, and can be easily trained to track something without attacking it. What our eyes have difficulty seeing, their noses can pick up from a long distance away.

im still laughing. Thats funny

Hoomi, I actually hoped that the male cat would locate my missing snake, but only when I was around to see him do it. He certainly had me going for a few days, looking around everytime he seemed extra alert or appeared to be watching something.